The Present invention relates to Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) on the Web and, more particularly, to a system and a method for assisting the learner involved in distance learning situation on the Internet by several types of intelligent Agents. It also relates to knowledge mining by discovering on the Internet which help appears useful in a given context.
Correspondence courses, the earliest form of distance learning, have been in widespread use since the end of the 19th Century. As communications tools have been developed, so have distance learning methods, namely the use of television broadcasts, video recordings, computers and multi-media have been applied for distance learning purposes.
The Internet is the first widespread public access data network, and it too has been applied to distance learning. A product in the market today is the Virtual Learning Network (VLN), which provides HTML based learning materials and includes discussion forums and chatrooms. The VLN is supported by the US Government""s Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program administered through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. VLN thus makes use of the Internet to allow learners to communicate with each other and benefit from sharing of personal experience via discussion forums and chatrooms. While interaction with other learners is an important step forward. distance learning requires optimal tutorial and help materials, the right teaching model approach to the learner, and a fast response to overcoming a learner""s difficulties, all of which are not necessarily provided by the improvements found in VLN.
It is an object of the present invention to combine the use of intelligent and cognitive agents with mobile dissemination of effective synchronous and asynchronous learning.
The present system uses the Internet as a constructivist learning environment and aims to provide intelligent assistance to improve both quality of training and distribution of knowledge in a distance learning situation. The assistance is based on various intelligent Agents which act collaboratively to support learning at different steps. A first Agent (pedagogical Agent), close to the learner, is able to detect his difficulties using a learner model and provides local explanations when needed or on request. A second Agent (dialog Agent) provides access to other explanations or learners available on the Web, in synchronous or asynchronous mode. Taking into consideration all possible helps a third Agent (negotiating Agent) is in charge of finding and selling explanations according to a market of requests and helps. A fourth Agent (moderator) in charge of determining which explanation was finally useful to serve as a permanent source of explanation for future learners.
According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of providing intelligent tutoring information to a learner at a learner station, comprising providing tutorial curriculum data including help data to the learner station, the help data having a profile identifier for identifying the help data as belong to one of at least two learning model strategies, choosing a learning strategy for the learner, selectively presenting the help data as part of the tutoring information based on the selected learning strategy.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of providing intelligent tutoring information to a learner at a learner station, comprising providing an explanation from a remote source in response to the learner failing to understand a concept, the explanation relating to the concept, obtaining information at the learner station about the usefulness of the explanation, and updating data concerning the explanation in an explanation database based on the obtained usefulness information.
According to a third aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of providing intelligent tutoring information to a learner at a learner station, comprising detecting the learner failing to understand a concept and generating a concept vector, determining suitable tutor users for providing assistance in understanding the concept using the concept vector from a database of users, selecting one of the suitable users, establishing synchronous communications between the learner and the selected one of the suitable users; and engaging in a dialog to obtain an explanation for the misunderstood concept.
According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of providing intelligent tutoring information to a learner at a learner station, comprising detecting the learner failing to understand a concept and generating a concept vector, searching for suitable explanations corresponding to the concept vector in an explanation database to which the learner station has regular direct access, determining when the suitable explanations have been exhausted, and sending a request to at least one explanation negotiator including the concept vector, and retrieving an explanation corresponding to the concept vector from at least one different explanation database, and returning the explanation retrieved to the learner station.